I just installed the newest version of slackware (first time linux user) on my Windows machine (dual boot). And the installation seemed to go just fine, however, after I boot into linux-log on- and type startx, the screen blanks out then comes back with this message:
Can somone help me out?

could you please post the contents of /etc/X11/xorg.conf it seems something is wrong with the section about your mouse.

This is going to sound dumb, but thats why i put it in the newbie section . I have piped the output of xorg.conf into a text file in my home directory. BUT I have no way of getting onto my windows partition seeing how its only Read-Only when i'm on linux. I don't have a floppy drive and when i try to mount my USB pen drive I don't know what the name is....I've tried
mount /dev/sda /mnt/pen
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/pen
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/pen
mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/pen
mount /dev/sdb /mnt/pen
mount /dev/sdc /mnt/pen
But no such luck so far. Any remedy to this situation?

you could try running dmesg after you plug in your usb drive and see if it gets recognized, plus it should also tell you where it is in the /dev directory.

dmesg didnt show any sda/sdb/sdc or anything like that after i plugged it in.

As root run xorgconfig.

If your Windows partition is NTFS, then you can write to it in Linux. If it was FAT, then it can write to it with out any problems.

From looks of your pen drive. It seems that Windows screw up partition it. In Windows copy the files from the pen drive. Next in Linux use cfdisk or fdisk to delete all partition on the pen drive. Then make one big partition. Set the partition type to b. After that do hdparm -z /dev/sda. Use mkdosfs to format the pen drive as a fat. Go into Windows and copy the files to it.

When you mount the pen drive, first make a directory in /mnt called. Then type 'mount -t vfat -o umask=000,rw /dev/sda1 /mnt/pen'. To unmount it first run sync and then type umount /mnt/pen.

I tried to write it to the Windows partition which is located on /fat-c, but it says its a Read only file system. when i run cfdisk the pen drive doesnt show up for me to format it.

cfdisk or fdisk only creates or deletes partitions. It defaults to Linux for a type of partition. I said to change the type of partition to b. The format utility in Linux is mkdosfs to format FAT16 and FAT32.

To mount a vfat partition and to make it writable to everybody. Type the following
mount -t vfat -o umask=000,rw /dev/hda1 /mnt/fat_c

This assumes that /dev/hda1 is your FAT partition and the directory /mnt/fat_c is already created. The umask=000 and rw makes sure the directory /mnt/fat_c is writable to everybody instead of root and makes files and directories under it to be read/write/execute for everybody. Though PAM may say otherwise, so you may have to use the command 'chmod -v 777 /mnt/fat_c' to force it after mounting your FAT partition.

The windows partition is NTFS located at /fat-c (not sure why its named fat). And if i format THAT partition wont i lose my Windows OS and files? I cant write to the NTFS windows partition even with root.

OK I have messed around with the xorgconfig program and have set my mouse strait (set it to PS/2, and pointed it to /dev/psaux). Now my only problem is with my Video. When I startx a series of errors pop up about RADEON no device found....Screens were found but no modes are usable. I have an ATI Radeon 9600 with Omega Drivers and i cant seem to configure it correctly for startx to work.

If I set it to a regular VGA defaults, my screen says "Going to sleep" and turns off. So any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the help so far by the way , I know i'm not too good at explaining things

No core pointer
Fatal server error:
failed to initialize core devices


X10: Fatal IO error 104(connection reset by peer) on X server "0.0" after 0 requests(0 known proccessed) with 0 events remaining
thts wht happenes to me evreytime i type startx after i downloaded linux for my first time and i really need some1 to help me fix coz i didnt even start using it yet

jamal91 - Please don't hijack the thread. Please 1) search google for the error message 2) search LQ for the error and finally - if nothing else can be found - 3) start your own thread here. (The answer to your question is in this thread as well)


@Otis - Try changing the driver in your xorg.config to 'vesa'. This will probably fix your problem, but you won't have any 3D acceleration. To fix that, what type of video card do you have? IIRC there are two types of the ATI drivers, one meant for the oldder ATI cards and one for the newer ones. I'm not sure where they draw the line, and someone using ATI may have to help you from here, but the 'vesa' thing SHOULD work.


To change the driver:

su to root
nano/pico/vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf
look for a section like this:

Section "Device"
#Identifier "VESA Framebuffer"
#Driver "vesa"
Identifier "GeForce FX"
Driver "nvidia"
#VideoRam 4096
# Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection


It won't be exact but it should be somewhat close and it will be under the "Graphics Device Section" if this is an automatically generated xorg.conf. You should replace the 'driver' line with "vesa" (In the above example the driver is "nvidia", your's is probably "radeon")

Hope this helps!

how can i do that when it wont even let me start linux plz be more specific

You'll have to do it in text mode. Linux runs perfectly well without the graphical interface. If you're having trouble with the instructions given in this thread, I'd take xpromisex's advice and start a new one explaining exactly what you've tried and what isn't working.